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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890093">promises are always made to be broken</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/emavee/pseuds/emavee'>emavee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Batman, Don't worry he will get one, Gen, Mild Injury, collapsed building, concussion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:34:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,183</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890093</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/emavee/pseuds/emavee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Grayson had said. Said it over and over and over again. Damian could always call for help, and Grayson would come running. He’d promised.</p>
<p>Whumptober Day 8: abandoned</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Damian Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948276</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>119</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>promises are always made to be broken</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Grayson had said. Said it over and over and over again. Damian could always call for help, and Grayson would come running. He had </span>
  <em>
    <span>promised.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s pitch black and deathly silent other than his own ragged breathing, so Damian has no clue how long he’s actually been stuck here, pinned under a collapsed wall, but his internal clock’s best guess is that it’s been at least three hours. And that’s not even counting the time he spent unconscious. He has no way of knowing for sure how long he’s been buried beneath this rubble.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he does know that it’s been long enough that Grayson should </span>
  <em>
    <span>be here</span>
  </em>
  <span> by now. He’d activated his distress signal the moment he woke up and realized he was, embarrassingly enough, not going to be able to get out of this on his own. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grayson had sworn up and down, so often that it was beginning to get extremely annoying, that asking for help when one needs it is not a weakness, but a strength. Damian isn’t really sure if he quite believes him, but he’s trying to. Really, really trying. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was starting to believe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps it is a test. Damian is relatively uninjured—at least, compared to what he’s had in the past—so maybe Grayson expects him to get out of this on his own. Perhaps this is just another trial in his training. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Damian can’t get out. He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>tried.</span>
  </em>
  <span> If he moves too much, it’s highly likely that the rest of the ceiling will come down on this little bubble of space he’s found himself in. The debris will have to be removed from the outside. There is no other way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He will need Batman to help him get out of this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Batman is not here, and has not yet checked in on Damian, or contacted him to inform him that he has been held up. He is not coming. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For once in his life, Damian needs help, and Grayson isn’t coming.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Apparently, Damian can’t even handle one measly supervillain. Shame burns in his cheeks, and he is momentarily very glad that there is no one to see his humiliation here in the dark.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course he is a failure. That is why his father hated him, why his mother abandoned him. Grayson now has surely seen what both of his biological parents saw: Damian is not worth all the time Grayson has put into training him, into patrolling with him, into going over cases with. (Damian is not worth the time Grayson spent listening to those imbeciles at his ridiculous parent-teacher conferences, the movie nights that had been forced upon him after particular grueling patrol, all those times Grayson had pulled him into his arms or ruffled his hair or carried him up to his room when he fell asleep waiting up at the Batcomputer.) Damian is not worth kindness and patience—he is supposed to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>better </span>
  </em>
  <span>than those things, far far above them. He should need them, not even want them. He is a Wayne </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> an al Ghul, two incredible legacies that Damian was always meant to shoulder, head held high. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now he is not so sure if he is deserving of either of his legacies, nor of the third that he has been carrying more recently. Robin should be better than this. Robin should be above failure; his Batman depends on it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damian can’t believe he let himself get so </span>
  <em>
    <span>weak</span>
  </em>
  <span> as to believe that foolish nonsense about asking for help. Of course it had been nothing more than a blatant lie. Of course Grayson shouldn’t be expected to have to come running after him at every turn. Damian was such a fool to think otherwise. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He bites down hard on his lower lip until he tastes the metallic taste of blood. Grayson had </span>
  <em>
    <span>promised.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He said that things weren’t like that anymore. His calls for help were supposed to be answered. He promised he promised he promised</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Damian had believed him. He never should have.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Unless… unless something happened to Grayson. Richard said he’d always be there when Damian needed him. He wouldn’t abandon him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He wouldn’t.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He’d sworn over and over that things were different here. That Damian would never be punished, not like this. There would be groundings and benchings and assignments of extra chores, but never pain and hurt and declarations of weakness or unworthiness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps something has happened to Grayson. Something happened and Grayson is badly injured or dying or, or </span>
  <em>
    <span>dead</span>
  </em>
  <span> and that’s why he hasn’t come for Damian yet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s the only other explanation. Either he’s abandoned him for his weakness, or he’s physically incapable of coming to his aid—but either way, Damian will be alone again. It’s not a thought he can bear to stomach, and that realization terrifies him. He never should have allowed himself to get so attached.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He does not think overly highly about the majority of his father’s so-called children, but Damian can no longer reasonably say that he could look at Grayson and declare that they are not family. At least, not in his own head. Out loud, he still cannot manage to voice it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is weak, and if something truly has happened to Grayson, then Damian has failed his Batman too. He should have been better.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except… that’s just it. Grayson is </span>
  <em>
    <span>Batman.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He does not need Damian to protect him. He is a skilled fighter and the only one potentially worthy of carrying Father’s mantle. He is one of the strongest people Damian has ever known. Surely, then, he is fine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is fine, and has merely realized that Damian is not worth coming after. He is an intelligent man under that overly cheerful, overly trusting exterior—it was only a matter of time before the fragile trust he had placed in Damian shattered. This is merely the tipping point into the inevitable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sob tears out of him entirely without his permission. It scares him—he must have some sort of head trauma if he is lying here openly weeping like an infant. He has not cried since he was three-years-old and he learned better. Yet another newfound manifestation of his failure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once the tears start, he finds they are difficult to stop. They pool uncomfortably under his mask, dampening the material and blurring what little he is able to see in the darkness. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is disappointed in Grayson and even more disappointed in himself. Something cold that has been lurking in the pit of his stomach for so long now is growing and growing and Damian just wants it to </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop.</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grayson could make it stop. He is the only one who has ever managed to halt this feeling in its tracks. Damian hadn’t even known it was lurking there until Grayson had pushed it away the first time and made Damian feel warm and… safe, he now thinks might be the right word.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He should have known better. Damian is not meant for safety. He is a fighter, a weapon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has been such a fool.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>stay tuned for a part two! can't leave dami like this :(</p></blockquote></div></div>
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